[Cue Melancholy Guitar from “Brokeback Mountain”]  

My name is Bryan Harrison and as a renowned nothing celebrity, I feel a strong obligation to bring a matter of grave importance to your attention. Of all medical disorders, none are so tragic as those which affect the brain, depriving innocent victims of their very identities.

Sufferers of TSTS (Taking Shit Too Seriously) all too often live alone and in shame, and even as I speak, many are at risk of losing their lives and identities. While such people appear healthy, they periodically experience a crippling inability to process absurdity. Without regular transfusions of irony from compassionate people such as yourself, victims of TSTS develop behavioral problems that have tragic consequences for family, friends, and society.

I'm pleading with you because, like so many, I suffer from TSTS. While the initial symptoms were subtle, recently they've become so severe that I can no longer ignore them.

[Cue Theme from "Jaws"]

You see, I want to slap the Pope.

Yes, that's right – slap the Pope. In the latest of his seemingly inexhaustible pontifical idiocies, Benny the Rat has claimed condoms aggravate rather than ameliorate the problem of HIV infection. It's not the first time, and since many here and elsewhere have already covered the destructive lunacy of this, I can't see any point to recouping the debate. After all, there is no debate. "Debate" implies two sides. Here we have only the enormous body of knowledge demonstrating the efficacy of condoms and the tragedy of failing to use them, and the malicious insanity of one insanely destructive God-crazed white man and his vast legions of ignorant dupes.

Since The Rat has already been refuted by better minds than mine, I have only one thing to contribute: my vast overweening desire to slap that lying son of a bitch in the face. Mind you, since I've always regarded violence as the last refuge of the incompetent I can't escape what this implies about me. I've master minded computer networks, construction sites, orgies, a Tupperware party, and perhaps more to the point, dozens of funerals, but I can no longer manage my feelings all by myself. I need your help.

The one armed bandit of my sense of humor has been fed one too many counterfeit coins. I pull the lever and instead of “Hah!”“Hah!” and “Hah!”, the little windows come up “Bap!” “Smack!” and “Kpow!” I wanna slap that stupid fucker so hard his head spins like Linda Blair's, sewing her mother's socks in hell.

[Cue Thelma Houston “Don't Leave Me This Way]

I'm not like this. Really. Giving a constipated rat shit about the Pope makes me feel so ashamed.  I'm a fun guy. Please. Don't leave me this way.

It's not the vast shambling zombie dance party of the dead that goes on in my back brain that's finally brought me low. (Shit happens and if a plague isn't shit, I don't know what is.) It's the way I and everyone else I know changed our behavior and the entire basis of our culture virtually overnight. We voluntarily sacrificed traditions, institutions, behaviors, and identity. We worked and fought and educated not just for other fags, but for hookers, junkies, and children who hadn't even been born. Dykes who had no personal stake in the game pitched in unstintingly. We rerouted our lives, sacrificed other hopes and dreams, and broke our hearts.

We did this largely without government funding, against public health policies based on denial, and in a media environment more concerned with the delicate sensibilities of middle class white people than with saving lives. And then we changed all that too, never ceasing to wipe butts, distribute meds, make tasty meals that nobody could keep down, and deliver eulogies in the meantime. Those of us who aren't dead, burned out, profoundly embittered, or so fucked up with PTSD that screaming nightmares preclude more than a couple hours of sleep are still trying, one way or another, to get through this.

[Cue Bronski Beat "Disenchanted"]

I can accept that the culture I love was destroyed, along with my career and whatever claim I had to sanity. The above paragraphs notwithstanding, I don't even whine unduly in public. I can accept that 25 years after I first played body guard to a drag queen handing out condoms to hookers and their clients in DC's red light district, America's capitol city leads the way in new HIV infections.

But I just can't accept that Benny the Rat and his co-rodents are still blithely trying to undermine the accomplishments of so many better men and women. If I had any such beliefs, I'd call him Satan and leave it up to God, but I don't and so am not free to pass the buck. I can forgive what Father Bob did to me in the swimming pool 41 years ago, but I can't forgive this.

So I'm not talking a little “Oh you cad!” slap like Scarlett gave Rhett. I'm talking the big, heavy, bruising slaps the primate in me reserves for males I don't respect enough to punch. I don't hate Benny – again, that would imply respect – and I certainly don't want to kill him (martyrdom also implies respect). In fact, I don't want anything at all for him. This is about me.

I want to deliver a lifetime of injury, frustration, and rage that I can no longer put into words in the form of a lip-fattening, jaw-dislocating reality check. I want to take the 50 years of undeserved persecution I've received at the hands of the Catholic church, hold it in my right hand, and use all 225 pounds of me to return all the lies, hurt, injustice, humiliation, violation, and damage to their symbolic source. I want to knock that uncaring irresponsible fucked up old douchebag's stupid hat right off his evil head and watch his nose bleed all over his embroidered gown.

[Cue Mary Martin “I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair”]

Then I'll have a good long cry, try to meet a nice boyfriend in prison, and if I ever get out, market it all as a video game.

Move over Whack-A-Mole – here comes Slap-The-Pope.

Oh. Look. I've sort of made a funny. I guess I can cancel my flight to Rome.

See the good you can accomplish by generously giving only a few minutes of your time?

Bless you, my children. Bless you.